Author, Historian, and Magazine Editor. He is best remembered as an American historian of the first half of the 20th century. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and received his primary education at Groton School, a private school in Groton, Connecticut. He enrolled in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts and graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor's Degree followed by a Master's Degree in 1913. He taught briefly at Harvard before becoming assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1914. In 1916 he became the managing editor of The Century until 1923, when he started working for Harper's Magazine in 1923, becoming the editor-in-chief in 1941 which he held until shortly before his death. An avid historian, he began writing in his free time while working at Harper's. His best-known books were "Only Yesterday" (1931), which described American life in the 1920s, and "Since Yesterday" (1940), which covered the Depression in America during the 1930s. His last and probably his most ambitious book, "The Big Change" (1952), was a social history of America encompassing the period 1900 to 1950. He died two years later in New York City, New York at the age of 63. In 1958 the Ford Foundation established The Frederick Lewis Allen Memorial Room in the New York Public Library in his honor. (bio by: William Bjornstad)